This. I know Odev said he was hoping to finish it within a week, but I was hoping he was just going to leave a cliffhanger and not actually finish the war within the week, because it would feel extremely rushed if he did so. And it does.

Spoiler

As awesome as the fight scene is with Voldemort, you can tell the author just wants to get it over with. You go from Harry killing death eaters in the room of requirement to the very next scene having Snape already having captured Harry and presenting him to Voldemort.

While we get an explanation in Harry's inner monologue, it still feels like the author just wanted to get it over with, which is fair enough since he never planned this fic and is only continuing for the reviewers. I can't wait till the fic is finished because if this is what he can write without trying, even having some lulz along the way, any fic he actually tries to write will be bound to be awesome.

 

We should invite him to join. He is already a good author, with a much bigger potential. DLP could do wonders for him.

 

I thought the duel was somewhat lame, on a few levels:

1. It was inelegant. All that seemed to matter was amount of power.

2. The descriptions of the quantities of power got over the top, and with so much "it was so powerful that blah blah blah" going on they all kinda cancelled each other out in terms of impressiveness. Nothing in particular from the duel sticks in your memory. Compare to the Dumbledore vs. Voldemort duel in OotP -- I think I could remember every move in that duel after the first read-through alone.

3. Show vs. tell was heavy on the tell side. We were told a lot about how much power is being thrown around, but we don't really see it. For that Voldemort's power is talked up, the most he really does is throw a few bits of furniture around.

 

Or it can also be attributed towards Voldemort's strategy of overpowering his opponents through brute force itself. He doesn't see Harry a worthy opponent to showcase his skill like he had to do against Dumbledore at DOM in canon and Dumbledore again at the Bones manor.

 

As I read I couldn't help but keep editing, in my head, many of his phrases and word choices. I find the author's vocabulary-- lacking. Can anyone tell if English is his native tongue?

Aside from that, the story reads more like a script to a movie. We don't delve too deep into characters' minds, and as a result I can't "feel" for any of the characters, there's no emotional attachment!

 

A/N chapter ten.

 

I was definitely pleasantly surprised by this. Thank god for Taure's post. I knew I could atleast trust him on the matter of the fic being good at all, despite my usual preferences of fics differing from his own.

Not much I can say for this fic that hasn't been said before. I'll rate it a 4/5 because of how well it flowed to me and how well it was written.

 

Man, logging in after so long just to give this a rating. It's been a long time since I actually enjoyed a story that was posted for review.

I definitely only carried on after the first few chapters because everyone said to (I had completely missed the author's note at the top somehow). It is fortunate that I did because the story took on a new direction. The first several chapters can simply be seen as a parody on the genre (something which I enjoyed in hindsight). Then we move onto an engaging story. Although it is clear that Harry is pretty overpowered, he mostly uses his intelligence when engaging in situations. Until - that is - when he straight-up walks into the middle of Voldemort's fortress, despite knowing he is a league below him. His arrogance also mirrors our own perception of him being overpowered, perhaps more accurately, infallible, at this point.

Didn't even bring a flashbang with him this time. (Completely unrelated and non-serious but I think he should have just stolen a nuke and detonated that near Gaunt's place... )

There's also some interesting mysteries. Anyone know who his partner is? If it isn't someone normal (I suspect it is the same 'Tom' he is asking for help from now), then I wonder if it could have been a new problem for him (as he suggests). However, judging by what Fardeki said, he's wrapping the story up so I doubt it'll take up more than a chapter. While I think that would be a shame, it would be nice to have a story that actually finishes with a real ending rather than dragging out.

 

I'm pretty sure he is Tom (after all Dumbledore isn't infallible, and there's no reason to think that an overpowered Harry wouldn't be able to secure a Time Turner), and now he needs Tom's state of mind - that of a cold, ruthless killer - to survive.

 

He did break into the Department of Mysteries after all. It's perfectly possible he picked up a Time Turner while he was there.

The only other possibility, I think, is that Tom is a rebellious horcrux. But the horcruxes are all accounted for.

 

I thought those were the two obvious choices, either Tom is another Horcrux, which is kind of hard since Harry has been absorbing them all, or Harry himself.

I'm kind of hoping the author is going to throw a left hook and Tom is someone else we didn't think of, and that somewhere along the way he has been giving us hints. I can't find any though, not that I've looked hard, so it looks like its one of those two choices.

 

I was under the impression that the horcruxes he'd been absorbing had manifested into an alter-ego, Tom. As in he has almost two complete souls in his body.

 

I came across this story on Taure's FF profile and read it through last night. It was definitely one of the best guilty pleasures I've read in a long time. The cliches and tropes are easily overlooked if you go into the story with odev's original warning in mind. That said I am very impressed with how he progresses as a writer through the fic. The writing is tight and fast-paced without much description though it fits the story.

The changes in POV was an interesting choice to make and I was actually hoping that we wouldn't see Harry's POV during the beginning. odev did a very good job managing other peoples views of Harry.

The last chapter was very rushed, but it seems like there might be only one or two left. I certainly think he is just trying to wrap it up.

I second Invictus, let's send this guy an invite to join and have front row seats to whatever he turns out when working with purpose as opposed to just fucking around with his writing.

 

The fic starts off rough, but like others have said it grows on you as you read it. Back in the day people would have been singing its praises.

I was particularly impressed with the battle in chapter 16; we got to see just enough of Dumbledore vs. Voldemort for it to be impressive and not enough for it to get boring, mixed in with a cool scene for Tonks, all in an interesting battlefield with lots of things going on.

4/5

 

Action Packed

4.5/5 for enjoyability.... However I am not sure if it is enough to qualify it going to the library.

\IMPORTANT, The Author Clearly states at the beginning of the first chapter that, and I quote.

"Small Warning: This story is intended as a guilt pleasure, a fun little ride. If you come here looking for intricate character and long deep story lines you're going to be disappointed. If your just looking for a fun read you'll hopefully enjoy it"
I personally enjoyed reading this Fic particularly towards the later chapters, I think the story got better and better the more I read.

One of the best aspect of the story was that it was a non-stop action pact ride.... No boring fillers, each chapter was a thrilling and enjoyable piece of writing (More so in the later chapters).

However their were a few aspect to this story I did not enjoy or found a bit annoying. It was pretty unrealistic extreme Indi-Harry, the debatably unethical sex scene with Ginny kind of put me a bit (The whole Mind wiping issue).

Having said that, if you can overlook any negative aspects/points that may put your off and just enjoy the ride, I found myself enjoying the greater portion of the story. The combat scene in particular were quite well done.

On the whole I would recommend this fic's to anyone whom doesn't require A-grade plot-lines & characterisations and are just looking for a fun, enjoyable Fic to read. In fact it was one of the most enjoyable fic's I have read in quite a while.

 

.epub downloads:
Salvation in Shadow by odev - (Mega, Mediafire)

 

Perhaps I'm doing something wrong, but both of the links that you provided display gibberish once downloaded and opened.

 

I tested both links and they worked properly for me.

Spoiler: File info

Salvation in Shadow - odev (25).epub

Hashes:
CRC32: 857FCB58
MD5: 3867044F6C3E12909B180E0E8A1200D8
SHA-1: 600E3496820C9338028043283467D8E841858687

They opened properly in Calibre and a random online epub-reader.

Do the files you downloaded have the same hash as mine? Here is a random online hash calculator.

 

This is the sort of thing that pops up when I tried to open either of the files,

-
''6aˆŠYJÄ5£ë¤è[˜‡î©øƒ4ÆV¡]
H±i §ÞXZ¶3ŠJþ£jŸ¡ÏÌØÀA´æÚv€†?3¨A÷r½¥ÊÀ¸±¤+f):®µýl b´ÍÚ3ªô;$$’‚¡Š
ôeàÆ2®¸“l {âpv¸H–.&׺çfmÕ\µCÍêýHÕ×›H#Ö-Õ7ê)W¦í˜î ‡ÚÁ=¹ÈF¥ÎRlS®‡Õ?¬2å!E#è8yøHµAŸzWŸáVù/ ôf¬Ì9Æ!û^Àù¡l|øsÞ}_Û¢„¾‰ø Ò%׊iý&ft§MÅÄ™JCÝ•—ɁO€¯šœµŒ®¬<ËäÓo“òØ.‰rZZŽs_WÓrPû_‡-·ù±³ƒ-©à
ø¬¼…ÊëÐF1hÜFV™¨v‰kÊnбšÓÔì{ÛûþØSò]Z› ¾ƒ¶o}zFòëO?<<æÚì[©`&«´ÝÜkNË-ÀÇá:ôß=ô¸l·1ȱœf¿q<ól''

I just attempted to open them directly, and when I used the random epub link that you provided, for whatever reason I could only see the description of the fic. I'd imagine that the problem is with my tech skills, which unfortunately also means that I have no idea how to check the hash of the file.

(Edit) - I just got it working, thank you for the help.-